In February, then Director
of National Intelligence Dennis C. Blair acknowledged it saying CIA
operatives and Special Forces death squads have been authorized to kill
US citizens abroad, suspected of terrorist involvement.

Disapproval came from an
unlikely source, Hollywood tough guy Chuck Norris in an article titled,
"Obama's US Assassination Program? 'A Shortlist of US Citizens
Specfically Targeted for Killing?" saying:

It's true, an "abandonment
of our Constitution....based on nothing more than" suspicion of
terrorist involvement. "That's right. No arrest. No Miranda rights. No
due process. No trial. Just a bullet," bomb or slit throat, Washington's
new approach along with torture as official policy - justice,
American-style under Republicans and Democrats, Obama even more extreme
than Bush, the rule of law defunct and defiled, the "land of the free"
disgraced, the entire world unsafe.

Enough to arouse the ire
of the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) and ACLU, on August 30,
filing a federal lawsuit (Al-Aulaqi v. Obama) challenging America's
right to kill US citizens abroad in cold blood "far away from any armed
conflict and without charge, trial or judicial process," the way the
Obama administration interprets US and international law.

Muslim cleric Anwar
al-Awlaki is a US citizen living in Yemen, targeted for opposing US
belligerency, not alleged or committed crimes, putting all Americans at
risk globally if outspoken against Washington's imperial extremism,
including its permanent war agenda endangering planetary life and civil
homeland society.

CCR and ACLU are
rightfully outraged, filing a successful August 3 suit against the US
Treasury and Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) for violating
Separation of Powers and First Amendment protection of "the right of
non-profit lawyers and legal organizations to give pro bono legal
representation to any US citizen," guaranteed also under the Fifth
Amendment. Still at issue is enjoining the assassination of all
Americans abroad, including al-Awlaki.

On August 30, on behalf of
his father, Dr. Nasser al-Aulaqi, CCR and ACLU filed suit against
Barack Obama, CIA Director Leon Panetta, and Defense Secretary Robert
Gates, challenging their right to kill his son, in violation of US and
international law.

In early July, Dr. Aulaqi
retained CCR and ACLU for his son, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner
calling him a "specially designated global terrorist" on July 16,
putting him on a hit list to be assassinated. He's currently in Yemen,
"without charge, trial or any form of due process."

After him, who's next
abroad or at home, maybe writers expressing outraged criticism, media
hosts doing it on air, and speakers justifiably denouncing the rule of
law's trashing. Under America's new standard, they're now potential
"terrorists," making everyone, everywhere unsafe because of rampaging
government policy, recklessly out-of-control, unhinged, without morals,
ethics, or even knowledge or interest in the difference between right
and wrong.

CCR and ACLU state:

"Under international human
rights law, lethal force may be used in peacetime only when there is an
imminent threat of deadly attack and when lethal force is a last
resort" to stop it. In contrast, "A program in which names are added to a
list through a secret bureaucratic process and remain there for
months....goes beyond" a last resort justification as well as recognized
US and international law.

"Moreover, targeting
individuals for killing who are suspected of crimes (not proved) without
oversight, due process or disclosed standards....also poses the risk"
of erroneously targeting innocent people.

Post-9/11, thousands of
them, men and some women like Aafia Siddiqui, have been wrongfully
designated terrorists, then imprisoned and brutally tortured, discovery
later revealing their innocence in court, in some cases too late to
matter, their emotional and physical well-being so systematically
destroyed, no amount of therapy can restore them.

Obama plans to speed up
judgements under a ready, fire, aim policy, murdering US citizens for
their justifiable outrage, showing how low American justice has sunk,
hitting rock bottom under a president who promised change - in fact,
delivering it, a different kind than imagined by too many Walter
Lippmann once called "the bewildered herd," out of touch and supportive.
Why others have to spread enlightenment before it's too late to matter.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com
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